Spending a weekend on your knees...

Time to get the floor sorted.

We camped in the van last weekend for the first time at Bustypes, the April evenings were still pretty chilly. Having insulated the roof and walls, the only really cold spot left was the floor. Determined not to repeat the cold night's sleep for next weekend's Stanford Hall show, it's time the floor was put right.

First up is even more sound deadening. Just in select areas to add weight to the vibrating panels.


Next up, insulation, again to begin with, in the larger gaps between the floor's corrugations.


Then on to full lengths of insulation for the whole floor:


Building up those layers. Next it's a layer of laminate floor underlay:


After this, the new plywood goes down. This was cut using the old rough ply as a template, tidying up any edges where necessary.



Finally, the rubber tiles go down as the final layer.


The tiles were bought cheap from B&Q as a discontinued line and, as such, we're not able to buy in batches of continued part numbers. The downside of this is some of the tiles, although black, appear blue in strong sunlight. As this is only a temporary floor until the main camping interior goes in, we're not too concerned. By the time we've given the floor some abuse it won't matter that the tiles don't match exactly!

Here's an example of the kind of 'weekend load' the van gets to carry:


One final tip: As it's hard to source a single piece of ply big enough for the floor of your van, it's good to mark out a centre-line. It's a great way of keeping things square as the floor of the T5 tapers slightly narrower towards the front. Cutting and measuring materials this weekend would have been twice as hard without it!



Next weekend: a trip to the Stanford Hall show in Leicestershire. Picking up our new Khyam Drive-away awning too - a report will follow shortly after.

Plate up!

Last job of the weekend was changing the number plates.

The original pair on the van were advertising the company we bought the van from and it wasn't a particularly discreet logo.


Preferring the Euro-look of number plates housed in a dealer surround, I bought a pair of Autohaus Wolfsburg plate surrounds months ago (intentionally for the old Polo).

Unfortunately a modern, UK-specific, plastic plate won't fit inside the surround. The only option is pressed metal. Until recently, pressed metal plate manufacturers have only been able to offer these plates for 'show-use' due to the typeface being slightly wrong or the material not being reflective.

Now a company called Dubmeister, based in Bristol, are offering the correct British Standard marked pressed metal plate:


It's another small detail, but one that makes all the difference.

Ceiling goes back in

When I last posted about the ceiling I'd just run out of sound deadening.

Since then I've replenished stocks and continued to cover the majority of exposed metalwork overhead.


The next layer to go up was the thermal lining, as demonstrated here by Nikki.


As you can see, half the roof is already back in place. The method used here is to clip one end in place then stuff the cavity with loft insulation to remove the 'air-layer' between the van roof and internal ceiling.


And that's it. All clipped back into place. I've painted the grey plastic surrounds of the interior lights to match the roof fabric. Sorry about the picture quality!

The roof is lined with a faux-suede material that looks like expensive alcantara. One handy tip; before you go searching for expensive materials and trimmings, take a look around at pre-made curtains. Our-roof lining is nothing more than a pair of curtains from Argos and cost no more than £35. Similar materials weigh-in at between £10 and £20 per metre.

Carpet conclusion

Take a long look at the image above. It may look like nothing more than a carpeted wheel-arch to you. But to me it's the culmination of hours of mulling-over in my head the best way of achieving the best looking job with probably not the best of abilities.

I was determined to make this part of the job as 'factory' looking as possible so, at a glance, it wouldn't really register. It would just be there.

The mulling-over had to come to an end. I had to cut some carpet. I had to smear horrible glue over lovely, shiny interior paintwork. A simple job that could so easily have looked poor.

Here's the rear pillar:


Another part of the interior with multi-direction curves and angles. Here's how it turned out:


Again, it doesn't look like much, but it's a big step in converting the van. And one I'm pretty grateful is at an end!

Here's another pic of the end result:

Early April Update

No work done on van this week other than the continual sticking of sound-proofing on the ceiling.

Things to look forward to this month are; German-style pressed metal number plates from Dubmeister will be arriving this week (yes officer, they're road legal), we've costed up changing the twin passenger seat to a single one - Volkswagen want £560+VAT of our hard earned to do the job, there's more carpeting on the cards for the four-day Easter weekend, we may also be sleeping in the van for the first time on the night of Good Friday.

Keep checking back for updates.

Oh, and another thing; Nikki and I may have come to agreement on the style of alloy-wheel for the van. I was expecting more of a fight!